Most people taking this course find the colour assignment the trickiest. It isn’t the easiest task to find the required combinations in one or two outings, so a mix of stand-alone images and technical shots is a good approach. Something you’ve done here, along with the detailed diagrams and good notes for both.
Colour Harmony through Complementary Colours
This set of four images and diagrams illustrates perfectly the harmonious possibilities in a variety of complementary colourways, with the diagrams illustrate the movement in the frame.
I think the bud, in the image of the rose, helps strengthen the composition and guide the movement towards the flower head. The red here, is highly saturated (is that using PS?), and seems to have lost some of its texture and detail, but it’s nicely defined against the soft focus greens in the background.
There’s a gentler feel to the following shot of oranges in a bowl. This might be partly due to the soft, low light on the subject – feels a bit underexposed here, although the angle lifts the skin texture on the fruit. There is a strong compositional conflict between the subject and the chrome basket.
The graffiti detail on the London wall works very well with the shapes and the complementary colours producing an unusual, organic movement around the frame. As you say in your notes it is almost circular, and the purple/yellow combination – much loved by hippies all around the world – is effective and pleasing.
The following close detail of the tomato and stalk produces a quite different movement, well defined in your diagram. The colour, and particularly the texture details, are excellent in this shot – a beautiful lens, the 105mm.
Colour Harmony Through Similar Colours
This is a strong and interesting set, with a real variety of subject matter and approach to composition, in which you demonstrate harmony similar colours perfectly.
The shot of the flower from above, perfectly positioned in the frame, contains a really good range of detail across the dynamic range, and although there is a good depth of field, it is the colour that distinguishes the flower head. I’m picking up a circular movement around the flower in this image.
With the landscape image, while the flat light lowers the level of contrast and facilitates the idea of similar colour harmony, I think the shot would work in fill strong light. The colours define the composition, but the real strength is the positive/negative shape, of the rising hill against the skyline.
Playground artifacts or contemporary sculpture, interesting how design and fine art are so close, especially when, as in this image, the structure is ambiguous. The three plains fall back, defined by the red, orange and yellow elements, creating a nice sense of space (and harmony).
I’m never sure about this type of shot, although there are certainly a range of harmonious similar colours here, and a sense of rhythm around the frame. It’s crying out for something, an imperfection or an anomalous addition to attract the eye.
Colour Contrast through Contrasting Colour
The first two images in this set are really intriguing; with a highly effective use of infra red and polarizing filters. Polarisers, of course, produce the most beautiful range of colour and tone in the right light, as well as cutting out surface reflections. The landscape here in Kew, is classic, with strong cloud detail and a well balanced foreground of lake divided by the tree line. Interestingly, for me, it’s the sky and the refection that are the real strengths of the image. With the previous image, the sky is most striking, with a great sense of movement, and the tropical house shimmers below – I think the contrast is pretty minimal here, although the wall does underline the shot.
The lifeguard on the beach could be either contrasting, or colour accent, but works very well, with the use of a long lens to create foreshortening, and the similar colour range of beach and tidal pools.
The close shot of the poppy, similarly to the earlier image of the rose, is heavily saturated here, and I’m missing most of the purple at the centre of the flower head. I wonder if this is just the transfer to PDF – or the reduction of detail in the jpeg transfer?
Colour Accent
This is the element of the assignment that people tend to find hardest to deal with – examples are out there, but sometimes need a bit of patience. This set of four is pretty good, with the red bin accented against the field of green. The strong light is crucial here, saturating the colours and making the red accent stand out even more.
Yes, there’s a humorous relationship in both the size and the angle between the seagull and girl – looks like a morsel ready to be picked off. The orange top worn by the girl really helps her to stand out as a small and distant subject, and the eye moves between the two, as you show in your diagram.
I see a different dynamic (an additional one I should say) in the following shot of the inflatable in the surf, with the direction coming from the horizon, down with the approaching waves. The small craft would always attract the eye as it’s so different, breaking up the rolling horizontals of the waves, but the yellow accent helps define the effect.
When you look at the colour of the IronBru, and then at the effect it appears to have on the paperclips, you ask yourself what they put in it… even the same(ish) colour on colour can work as an accent very well, with the hue and distinct shape of the objects drawing the eye – but, the movement travels around them, too for me.
Your reflective summary is very good, and as you say, this is an assignment which makes you look at images in a different way. Here you prove that you have been successful and effective in that process – well done
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